11/22/12

Though a Record or Near Record Warm Thanksgiving Today; Take a Look at a Record Cold Wave That Engulfed The Region at This Time and Refuses to Budge From The Record Books Back in 1880!

Record November Cold Wave Holds Steadfast For Well Over a Century

Nothing in
Southeast Michigan ’s record books has anything close to the record cold wave that occurred so early in the cold season than way back in the late 19th century in November 1880, or 132 years ago! The bitter cold surges blasted
Southeast Lower Michigan from the 18th to the 23rd from the
Arctic region and engulfed much of the country. The Arctic chill came
down in the form of two impressively strong Arctic high pressure systems (see maps below) for mid winter, let alone mid November.Below is the record chart for that period that contains boththe record low maximums and record lowsthat occurred during the November cold wave which
left six days of records that have not been touched since! The three
degree reading on the 21st and zero on the 22nd have yet to be
superseded by colder temperatures in the entire month of November. A zero (or below) record low does not appear in
Detroit ’s record lows for another 10 days when a -2 was recorded on December 2nd, 1976!

Again, not only is the cold impressive but that both the record low maximums and the record lowshave not been breached since this cold wave.The six days of record breaking cold remains intact since 1880! So
what caused this bone-chilling cold so early in the season, what did
the weather maps (or best representation of) look like so far back?
Let’s take a look at copies of the archaic weather map records from Nov
18-23, 1880 which shows the couple of mammoth Arctic high pressure
systems that affected much of the during the period.

As of 7AM - Thu Nov 18th Note the
first big chunk of cold dense air is well reflected by the exceptionally
high pressure for November (not to mention over the southern states) in
eastern Oklahoma of 30.78" /1042.MB/ (just at the bottom edge of our
map). This massive Arctic high made its way south out of the Northern
Plains and as a result, temperatures across much of the region were in
the single digits and teens.

As of 11PM - Nov 19th By late
Friday night, a new surge of Arctic air is beginning to show its face
here as a new low pressure trough enters the Upper Midwest and Great
Lakes Region. Note, temperatures haven’t had a chance to recover much
from the first bitter cold blast!

As of 11PM - Nov 20th The second
surge of fresh Arctic air continues advancing across the Great Lakes and
Ohio Valley as general high pressure holds over the southern states.

As of 11PM - Nov 21st A second,
duplicate strong high pressure appears on our map, once again by way of
the Northern Plains and expands south and east into into the Upper
Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes. Low pressure troughing holds sway
over the relatively warmer waters of the Great Lakes (estimates of water
temperatures in the mid 30s to mid 40s). Temperatures have plummeted
below zero already in the Upper Mississippi Valley by late Sunday night.

As of 11PM - Nov 22nd A huge
bitter cold high pressure lies spralled across the Ohio Valley and Great
Lakes with a central pressure of 30.85" /1045 MB/! The public continues
to be greated by record cold as the Thanksgiving work week commenced
across the nation. The 30.85" was a record high pressure at the time
(and may be yet) for Cincinnati, Ohio. Besides our own, numerous other
record lows were attained with the passage of these Arctic highs.

As of 11PM - Nov 23rd The large high pressure moves ever so slowly east with the central high pressure now over the mid Atlantic States.

Evidently this was not the first notable November cold snap that engulfed the region so early in the weather record days. The following was taken from the 1880 Monthly Weather Review:"The passage of of this area was marked by minimum temperatures for the Lakes region, the Atlantic States, the Ohio, Upper Mississippi and
Lower Missouri valleys. They occurred from seven to eight days earlier in the month than the remarkably low temperatures of 1875.
The most notable temperatures observed at the Signal Service Stations
were Washington, 12.5; Philadelphia, 10; St. Louis and Louisville, 8; Pittsburgh, 4; Buffalo, 3; Chicago, 1; Erie, Detroit, Sandusky, Grand
Haven and Des Moines, 0; Champaign, -3; Alpena, -4; Columbus,
Indianapolis, Keokuk and Milwaukee, -5; Port Huron, -6; Marquette,
-9."
As mentioned, all the
Detroit records remain intact 132 years later in 2012 and I wonder how many others are still around at other offices?

Making weather fun while we all learn,Bill Deedler -SEMI_WeatherHistorian